ADVERTISING

Meaning of Advertising - Advertising is an activity of attracting public attention to a product,

service, or business as by paid announcements in the print, broadcast, or electronic media.

Definition of Advertising - "Advertising is the non-personal communication of information

usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas
by identified sponsors through the various media." Now let's take this statement apart and see what
it means.

Non-personal
Basically sales is done either personally or non-personally. Personal selling requires the seller and
buyer to get together. Personal selling has its on advantages and disadvantages. Whereas
advertising is non-personal selling. Personal selling has many advantages over advertising like
direct communication, bargaining, enough time to discuss in detail about the product, seller can
easily locate potential buyer. Advertising has none of the advantages of personal selling, very little
time to present sales message, message is cannot be changed easily.

But, advertising has its own advantages which is not found in personal selling: advertising has
comparatively speaking, all the time in the world. Unlike personal selling, the sales message and
its presentation does not have to be created on the spot with the customer watching. It can be
created in as many ways as the writer can conceive, be rewritten, tested, modified, injected with
every trick and appeal known to affect consumers.

Advertising covers large groups of customer and to make it effective proper research about
customer is done to identify potential customers, to find out what message element might influence
them, and figure out how best to get that message to them.

Thus, it appears that advertising is a good idea as a sales tool. For small ticket items, such as
chewing gum and guitar picks, advertising is cost effective to do the entire selling job. For large
ticket items, such as cars and computers, advertising can do a large part of the selling job, and
personal selling is used to complete and close the sale.

Advertising is nonpersonal, but effective.

Communication
Communication means passing information, ideas, or feelings by a person to another.
Communication uses all the senses like smell, touch, taste, sound, sight. Only two senses - sound
and sight are really useful in advertising. In advertising, what appears is everything the writer
thinks the customer needs to know about the product in order to make a decision about the product.
That information will generally be about how the product can benefit the customer.

Paid For
Advertiser has to pay for the creation of ad and for placing it in the media. Cost of ad creation and
cost of time/space in the media must be paid for. Cost of advertising depends on TRP of media,
reach of media, and frequency of ad to be displayed.

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Persuasive
"Persuasive" stands to reason as part of the definition of advertising. The basic purpose of
advertising is to identify and differentiate one product from another in order to persuade the
consumer to buy that product in preference to another.

Identified Sponsors
Identified sponsors means whoever is putting out the ad tells the audience who they are. There are
two reasons for this: first, it's a legal requirement, and second, it makes good sense. Legally, a
sponsor must identify himself as the sponsor of ad. By doing so the sponsor not only fulfils the
legal requirements, but it also makes a good sense, if the sponsor doesn't do so, the audience may
believe that the ad is for any competitor's product, thus wasting all the time and money in making
and placing the ad.

Objectives of Advertising - The real objective of advertising is effective communication between

producers and consumers with the purpose to sell a product, service, or idea. The main objectives
of advertising are as follows:

Informative
Objective of advertising is to inform its targeted audience/customers about introduction of new
product, update or changes in existing products or product related changes, information regarding
new offers and schemes. Informative advertising seeks to develop initial demand for a product.
The promotion of any new market entry tends to pursue this objective because marketing success
at this stage often depends simply on announcing product availability. Thus, informative
advertising is common in the introductory stage of the product life cycle.

Persuasive
Objective of advertising is to increase demand for existing product by persuading new customer
for first time purchase and existing customers for repurchases. Persuasive advertising attempts to
increase demand for an existing product. Persuasive advertising is a competitive type of promotion
suited to the growth stage and the early part of the maturity stage of the product life cycle.

Reminder
The objective of advertising is to remind customers about existence of product, and ongoing
promotional activities. Reminder advertising strives to reinforce previous promotional activity by
keeping the name of a product before the public. It is common in the latter part of the maturity
stage and throughout the decline stage of the product life cycle.

Functions of Advertising - Following are the basic functions of advertising:

1. To distinguish product from competitors' products

There are so many products of same category in the market and they competes with each
other, advertising performs the function of distinguishing advertiser's product from competitors.

2. To communicate product information

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Product related information required to be communicated to the targeted customers, and
advertisement performs this function.

3. To urge product use

Effective advertisement can create the urge within audience for a product.

4. To expand product distribution

When the market demand of a particular product increases, the number of retailer and distributor
involved in sale of that product also increases, hence product distribution get expanded.

5. To increase brand preference

There are various products of different bands are available, the brand which is effectively and
frequently advertised is preferred most.

6. To reduce overall sale cost

Advertising increases the primary demand in the market. When demand is there and the product is
available, automatically the overall cost will decrease, simultaneously the cost of sales like
distribution cost, promotional cost also get decreased.

Classification of Advertising - Advertising can be classified on the basis of Function, Region,

Target Market, Company demand, Desired response, and Media.

A) Classification on the basis of function

 Advertisement informs the customers about a product
 Advertisement persuades the consumers to buy a products
 Advertisement reminds existing customers about the presence of the product in the market
Let us discuss some important types of advertising based on the functional aspect of advertising.
Informative advertising: This type of advertising informs the customers about the products,
services, or ideas of the firm or organization.

Persuasive advertising: This type of advertising persuades or motivates the prospective buyers
to take quick actions to buy the products or services of the firm. Example: “Buy one, get one free”.

Reminder advertising: This genre of advertising reminds the existing customers to become
medium or heavy users of the products or services of the firm that have been purchased by them
at least once. This type of advertising exercise helps in keeping the brand name and uses of the
products in the minds of the existing customers.

B) Classification on the basis of region

Advertisements can also be classified on the basis of the region, say:

Global advertising: It is executed by a firm in its global market niches. Reputed global magazines
like Time, Far Eastern Economic Review, Span, Fortune, Futurist, Popular Science. Cable TV
channels are also used to advertise the products through out world. Supermodels and cinema stars
are used to promote high-end products Examples: Sony, Philips, Pepsi, Coca Cola, etc.

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National advertising: It is executed by a firm at the national level. It is done to increase the
demand of its products and services throughout the country. Examples: BPL (Believe in the best).
Whirlpool Refrigerator (Fast Forward Ice Simple) etc.

Regional advertising: If the manufacturer confines his advertising to a single region of the
country, its promotional exercise is called Regional Advertising. This can be done by the
manufacturer, wholesaler, or retailer of the firm. Examples: Advertisements of regional
newspapers covering those states or districts where these newspapers are circulated. Eg. The
Assam Tribune (only for the NE region) etc.

Local advertising: When advertising is done only for one area or city, it is called Local
Advertising. Some professionals also call it Retail Advertising. It is sometime done by the retailer
to persuade the customer to come to his store regularly and not for any particular brand. Examples:
Advertisements of Ooo la la, Gupshup (Local FM channels) etc.

C) Classification on the basis of target market

Depending upon the types of people who would receive the messages of advertisements, we can
classify advertising into four subcategories:

Consumer product advertising: This is done to impress the ultimate consumer. An ultimate
consumer is a person who buys the product or service for his personal use. This type of advertising
is done by the manufacturer or dealer of the product or service. Examples: Advertisements of Intel,
Kuttons (shirt), Lakme (cosmetics) etc.

Industrial product advertising: This is also called Business-to-Business Advertising. This is

done by the industrial manufacturer or his distributor and is so designed that it increases the
demand of industrial product or services manufactured by the manufacturer. It is directed towards
the industrial customer.

Trade advertising: This is done by the manufacturer to persuade wholesalers and retailers to sell
his goods. Different media are chosen by each manufacturer according to his product type, nature
of distribution channel, and resources at his command. Hence, it is designed for those wholesalers
and retailers who can promote and sell the product.

Professional advertising: This is executed by manufacturers and distributors to influence the

professionals of a particular trade or business stream. These professionals recommend or prescribe
the products of these manufacturers to the ultimate buyer. Manufacturers of these products try to
reach these professionals under well-prepared programmes. Doctors, engineers, teachers, purchase
professionals, civil contractors architects are the prime targets of such manufacturers.

Financial advertising: Banks, financial institutions, and corporate firms issue advertisements to
collect funds from markets. They publish prospectuses and application forms and place them at
those points where the prospective investors can easily spot them.

D) Classification on the basis of desired responses

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An ad can either elicit an immediate response from the target customer, or create a favourable
image in the mind of that customer. The objectives, in both cases, are different. Thus, we have two
types of advertising under this classification.

Direct action advertising: This is done to get immediate responses from customers. Examples:
Season's sale, purchase coupons in a magazine.

Indirect action advertising: This type of advertising exercise is carried out to make a positive
effect on the mind of the reader or viewer. After getting the advertisement he does not rush to
buy the productbut he develops a favourable image of the brand in his mind.

Surrogate advertising: This is a new category of advertising. In this type of promotional effort,
the marketer promotes a different product. For example: the promotion of Bagpiper soda. The firm
is promoting Bagpiper Whisky, but intentionally shows soda. They know that the audience is quite
well aware about the product and they know this fact when the actor states, "Khoob Jamega Rang
Jab Mil Baithenge Teen Yaar ... Aap ... Main, Aur Bagpiper").

E) Classification on the basis of the media used in advertisement

The broad classification based on media is as follows:

Audio advertising: It is done through radio, P A systems, auto-rickshaw promotions, and four-
wheeler promotions etc.

Visual advertising: It is done through PoP displays, without text catalogues, leaflets, cloth
banners, brochures, electronic hoardings, simple hoardings, running hoardings etc.

Audio-visual: It is done through cinema slides, movies, video clips, TV advertisements, cable TV
advertisements etc.

Written advertising: It is done through letters, fax messages, leaflets with text, brochures, articles
and documents, space marketing features in newspapers etc.

Internet advertising: The world wide web is used extensively to promote products and services
of all genres. For example Bharat Matrimony, www.teleshop.com, www.asianskyshop.com etc.

Verbal advertising: Verbal tools are used to advertise thoughts, products, and services during
conferences, seminars, and group discussion sessions. Kinesics also plays an important role in this
context.

The Five M’s Of Advertising

The organizations handle their advertising in different ways. In small companies,

advertising is handled by someone in the sales or marketing department, who works with an ad

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ageny. A large company will often set up its own advertising department or else hire an ad agency
to do the job of preparing advertising programmes.
In developing a program, marketing managers must always start by identifying the target
market and the buyer’s motives. Then they can make the five major decisions in developing an
advertising program, known as the five M’s, viz.

 Mission: what are the advertising objectives?

 Money: how much can be spent?

 Message: what message can be sent?

 Media: what media should be used

 Measurement: how should the results is evaluated?

The above mentioned can be explained by the diagram given below

The 5Ms of Advertising

Checklist for planning of a marketing or advertising campaign.
 What are the objectives?
Mission
 What is the key objective?

Money  How much is it worth to reach my objectives?

 How much can be spent?
Message  What message should be sent?
 Is the message clear and easily understood?

Media  What media vehicles are available?

 What media vehicles should be used?
Measurement  How should the results be measured?
 How should the results be evaluated and followed up?

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MISSION
 Sales goals
 Advertising objectives

MONEY
 Stage in PLC
 Market Share and Consumer Base
 Competition and Clutter
 Advertising frequency
 Product substitutability

MESSAGE MEDIA
 Reach, Frequency & impact
 Major media types
 Message generation
 Specific media vehicles
 Message evaluation & selection
 Media timing
 Message execution
 Geographical media allocation

MEASUREMENT
 Communication impact
 Sales impact

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1. MISSION OR SETTING THE ADVERTISING OBJECTIVES

Advertising Objectives can be classified as to whether their aim is:

To inform: This aim of Advertising is generally true during the pioneering stage of a product
category, where the objective is building a primary demand.
This may include:
 Telling the market about a new product
 Suggesting new uses for a product
 Informing the market of a price change
 Informing how the product works
 Describing available services
 Correcting false impressions
 Reducing buyers’ fears
 Building a company image

To persuade: Most advertisements are made with the aim of persuasion. Such advertisements aim
at building selective brand.

To remind: Such advertisements are highly effective in the maturity stage of the product. The aim
is to keep the consumer thinking about the product.

2. MONEY

This M deals with deciding on the Advertising Budget

The advertising budget can be allocated based on:

 Departments or product groups
 The calendar
 Media used
 Specific geographic market areas

There are five specific factors to be considered when setting the Advertising budget.

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  Stage in PLC: New products typically receive large advertising budgets to build awareness
and to gain consumer trial. Established brands are usually supported with lower advertising
budgets as a ratio to sales.
 Market Share and Consumer base: high-market-share brands usually require less
advertising expenditure as a percentage of sales to maintain their share. To build share by
increasing market size requires larger advertising expenditures. Additionally, on a cost-
per-impressions basis, it is less expensive to reach consumers of a widely used brand them
to reach consumers of low-share brands.

 Competition and clutter: In a market with a large number of competitors and high
advertising spending, a brand must advertise more heavily to be heard above the noise in
the market. Even simple clutter from advertisements not directly competitive to the brand
creates the need for heavier advertising.
 Advertising frequency: the number of repetitions needed to put across the brands message
to consumers has an important impact on the advertising budget.
 Product substitutability: brands in the commodity class (example cigarettes, beer, soft
drinks) require heavy advertising to establish a different image. Advertising is also
important when a brand can offer unique physical benefits or features.

3. MESSAGE GENERATION

Message generation can be done in the following ways:

Inductive: By talking to consumers, dealers, experts and competitors. Consumers are the major
source of good ideas. Their feeling about the product, its strengths, and weaknesses gives enough
information that could aid the Message generation process.

Deductive: John C. Meloney proposed a framework for generating Advertising Messages.

According to him, a buyer expects four types of rewards from a product:
 Rational
 Sensory
 Social
 Ego Satisfaction.

Buyers might visualize these rewards from:

 Results-of-use Experience

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 Product-in-use Experience
 Incidental-to-use Experience

The Matrix formed by the intersection of these four types of rewards and the three types of
experiences is given below.
POTENTIAL TYPE OF REWARD (Sample Messages)
Rational Sensory Social Ego Satisfaction
Result-of-Use 1. Gets Clothes 2. Settles Stomach 3. When you care 4. For the skin you
Experience Cleaner upset completely enough to serve the deserve to have
best
Product-in- 5. The flour that 6. Real gusto in a 7. A deodorant to 8. The store for young
Use needs no sifting great light beer guarantee social executive
Experience acceptance
Incidental-to- 9. The plastic 10. The portable 11. The furniture 12. Stereo for the man
Use pack keeps the television that’s that identifies the with discriminating
Experience cigarette fresh lighter in weight, home of modern taste
easier to lift people

Message evaluation and selection

The advertiser needs to evaluate the alternative messages. A good ad normally focuses on
one core selling proposition.

Messages can be rated on desirability, exclusiveness and believability. The message must first
say something desirable or interesting about the product.

The message must also say something exclusive or distinct that does not apply to every brand
in the product category. Above all, the message must be believable or provable.

Message execution.
The message’s impact depends not only upon what is said but also on how it is said. Some ads
aim for rational positioning and others for emotional positioning.

While executing a message the style, tone, words, and format for executing the message should
be kept in mind.

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STYLE. Any message can be presented in any of the following different execution styles, or a
combination of them:

 Slice of life: Shows one or more persons using the product in a normal setting.
Coke 1litre ad, showed a family enjoying Coke, with a game of antakshari when there is a
power failure.

 Lifestyle: Emphasizes how a product fits in with a lifestyle.

Asmi and Platinum ads, that focus on lifestyle of persons using their products.

 Fantasy: Creates a fantasy around the product or its use.

VIP Frenchie ads, showing a woman thinking of the Frenchie man saving her from a
villain.

 Mood or image: Evokes a mood or image around the product, such as beauty, love, or
serenity. No claim is made about the product except through suggestion.
Kingfisher Beer ads, saying the King of Good Times.

 Musical: Uses background music or shows one or more persons or cartoon characters
singing a song involving the product.
Nescafe, Bacardi usually use Music as the main theme of communication

 Personality symbol: Creates a character that personifies the product. The character might
be animated
Ronald McDonald for McDonald’s

 Technical expertise: Shows the company’s expertise, experience, and pride in making
the product.
GE and Skoda ads

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  Scientific evidence: Presents survey or scientific evidence that the brand is preferred
over or outperforms other brands. This style is common in the over-the-counter drug
category.
DuraCell Ads, claiming the battery lasts 6 times longer than ordinary batteries

 Testimonial evidence: This features a highly credible, likable, or expert source endorsing
the product. It could be a celebrity or ordinary people saying how much they like the
product.
In ads for Sunsilk, they had hair expert Coleen, endorsing the product.

TONE: The communicator must also choose an appropriate tone for the ad.
Procter & Gamble is consistently positive in its tone—its ads say something superlatively
positive about the product, and humor is almost always avoided so as not to take mention
away from the message. Other companies use emotions to set the tone—particularly film,
telephone, and insurance companies, which stress human connections and milestones.

Words: Memorable and attention-getting words must be found. The following themes listed
on the left would have had much less impact without the creative phrasing on the right:

Theme Creative Copy

You won’t have to stay at home because of Get Out, Get Going
bad hair

Format: Format elements such as ad size, color, and illustration will make a difference in an
ad’s impact as well as its cost. A minor rearrangement of mechanical elements within the ad can
improve its attention-getting power. Larger-size ads gain more attention, though not
necessarily by as much as their difference in cost. Four-colour illustrations instead of black
and white increase ad effectiveness and ad cost. By planning the relative dominance of different
elements of the ad, optimal delivery can be achieved.

4. MEDIA

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The next ‘M’ to be considered while making an Advertisement Program is the Media through
which to communicate the Message generated during the previous stage. The steps to be
considered are:

Deciding on
Geographic
media
allocation
Step V Deciding on
media timing
Selecting specific
Step IV media vehicles
Choosing
Step III among major
media types
Deciding reach,
Step II frequency and
impact
Step I

5. MEASUREMENT

Evaluating the effectiveness of the Advertisement Program is very important as it helps prevent
further wastage of money and helps make corrections that are important for further advertisement
campaigns. Researching the effectiveness of the advertisement is the most used method of
evaluating the effectiveness of the Advertisement Program. Research can be in the form of:
 Communication-Effect Research
 Sales-Effect Research
There are two ways of measuring advertising effectives. They are:

Pre-testing

It is the assessment of an advertisement for its effectiveness before it is actually used. It is done
through
 Concept testing – how well the concept of the advertisement is. This is be done by taking
expert opinion on the concept of the ad.

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  Test commercials - test trial of the advertisement to the sample of people
 Finished testing

Post-testing

It is the assessment of an advertisement’s effectiveness after it has been used. It is done in two
ways
 Unaided recall - a research technique that asks how much of an ad a person remembers
during a specific period of time
 Aided recall - a research technique that uses clues to prompt answers from people about
ads they might have seen

THE 5 M’s OF ADVERTISING WITH RESPECT TO THE DOODH DOODH

CAMPAIGN

 MISSION:
A survey among 1,00,000 households in 1995 showed that there was a decrease inthe
direct consumption of milk because of the following reasons:
1. Milk took a backseat when compared to soft drinks when it came to teenagers.
2. Adults believed that milk was essential for growing children but not for them.
Thus the mission of the ad agency was to make aware the consumers about the benefits of
milk for youngsters as well as elederly pople. Their mission was to create a communication
plan that milk was not a “boring conservative drink” but a “youthful, exciting and
nutritional, exciting energy drink”

 MESSAGE
The writers hit upon the idea of using Hindi word for Milk i.e. “doodh doodh” in the
form of a musical note. This musical note was in the form of “sa-re-ga-ma” which was
remembered by the consumers a lot and was also top of mind when they were asked to
comment on milk. The commercial as well as the print ad showed not only kids and
youngsters but also elderly and old people whereby it targeted all age groups giving the
benefits of milk as well.

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 MEDIA:
Television was chosen as the primary media because of its popularity and the fact that an
audio visual medium lends itself to demonstration of ‘high energy’, ‘fun’ and
‘youthfulness’ more vividly.
The print medium was also used as reinforcement message deliver backing the TV
commercials.
The first round had concentrated on channels such as DD1, DD2 and the star plus. For
every spot that they bought, there were four spots given as a bonus to be aired on the same
programme. This made the commercial highly visible in terms of frequency as well as the
reach.

 MEASUREMENT:
Any effort to bring about an attitudinal change takes time. A measure of effectiveness of the
communication was that the TV commercial was voted by viewers of India’s one of the best
commercials aired. The communication has definitely made the youngsters make sing the
song ‘doodh doodh’, in addition to the cola songs. Qualitative research showed that there was
a tremendous popularity of the commercial across all the age categories. Kids in the age
group of 10-12 were not very resistant in their attitudes towards drinking milk. Mothers took
advantage of the commercial among the children to make them consume milk. There was a
rapid increase in consumption of milk across all age groups. The consumption of milk in
1995 was 198 gm/per day which has gone up to 250 gm/per day in 1998.

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THE 5 M’s OF ADVERTISING WITH RESPECT TO THE SUNDROP CAMPAIGN

MISSION:

Sales goals: Leadership in the edible refined oil segment

Advertising Goals:
Communication task
1. Position Sundrop as the healthy oil for healthy people
2. Ensure that this did not erode the delivery of the taste benefit.
3. Positioning had to be perceptually as far away from Saffola.
4. Young, modern and premium feel
5. Execution had to be distinct and original to stand out from the clutter

MONEY:

o Stage in PLC: Introductory, therefore relatively large expenditure

o Market share: new product
o Competitors:
Saffola (Safflower oil) also used the health platform but was associated with heart
patients and less taste
Flora and Sunola (Sunflower oils)

MESSAGE:

Health was chosen as the platform, along with a supporting claim for taste. People who were
healthy and energetic were concerned about the long-term prospects of their health. Thus ‘Health’
 Was related to maintenance of good health
 Was applicable to all members of the family
 Was characterized by lively energetic people
 Thus the message and (positioning): ‘The Healthy Oil for Healthy People’
MEDIA:

Primary media: Television ad 30 seconds.

Print ad

MEASUREMENT:

 Within 6 months, Sundrop became the largest selling refined sunflower oil.
 Redefined the category and expanded the Sunflower oil segment from 2.71% to 23% in 6
months, and 42% in 1997
 Still the largest selling sunflower oil brand holds 15% of branded oil market.
 The ad was shown for over 10 years as the main theme film.

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 AIDA MODEL
AIDA is a selling concept presented by Elmo Lewis to explain how personal selling works. AIDA
Model outlines the processes for achieving promotional goals in terms of stages of consumer
involvement with the message. The Stages are Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action.

Attention
In this media filled world, advertisers need to be quick and direct to grab audience attention. Ads
are required to be eye catchy which can make audience stop and read or watch what advertiser
have to say next. Powerful words and pictures are used in ads to make them attractive.

Interest
After getting attention of a chunk of the targeted audience, it is required to keep them engaged
with the ad to make them understand the message in more detail. Gaining the reader's or audience
interest is more difficult process than grabbing their attention. To gain audience interest the
advertisers must stay focused on audience needs.

Desire
The Interest and Desire parts of AIDA goes hand-in-hand. As advertiser builds the audience
interest, he also need to help them understand how what he is offering can help them in a real way.
The way of doing this is by appealing to their personal needs and wants.

A good way of building the reader's desire for advertiser offering is to link features and benefits.
Hopefully, the significant features of the offering have been designed to give a specific benefit to
members of the target market.

Action
Finally, advertiser need to be very clear about what action he want the audience to take- trial,
purchase, repurchase, or other.

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